With a title like Meatcleaver Massacre, you might be expecting either a Texas chainsaw rip-off, or maybe a low-grade/ cheap 80’s (possible) SOV slasher. But instead, this mid 70’s film is a blend of psychic revenge horror, cop investigating mystery, and occult thriller….oh, and it features a (brief) appearance of none other than horror legend Mr Christoper Lee. Here from 101 Films is a Blu-Ray release of this slice of 1970s occultic-fed grindhouse fare- taking in two cuts of the film, and a few interviews.

Meatcleaver Massare (aka The Hollywood Meatcleaver Massacre, Evil Force) is from the year 1976. It was (largely) directed by one Evan Lee, with apparently some (uncredited) help from none other than the original king of bad movies Edward D Wood- who passed two years after the film was released. This is Mr Lee’s one and only credit…. Though in reality, it was directed by a series of largely unnamed folk..but more on that latter. 

The disc features two versions of the film- one runs at eighty-five minutes, and the second at seventy-seven minutes. I watched the longer of these- and this version features Christoper Lee pop-up pre & post-credits, he’s sat in an occult scholar office set. He gives a selection of occult-related tales, with the end credits finishing off with shaman focus rhythm. There are more than a few awkward pauses- and some of the points/ stories don’t go anywhere- but it’s always great to see Mr Lee, no matter how small his appearance.

Anyway, with that out of the way let’s get onto the main film/ story. As one of its alternative suggests the film is shot in & around Hollywood/ LA- with along its length some neat nighttime shots of both Hollywood Boulevard, and the adult peep show/ porn side of the city.  The film regards a group of four college buddies- who are meant to be in their early twenties, though look in their mid-thirties- they are led up by arrogant, unpleasant, and sneering teeth smiling Mason (Larry Justin).

One of the lectures the group regularly attend is with Professor Cantrell (James Habif) a moustached and middle-aged academic- who specialises in ancient rites and rituals. After one of his lectures Mason starts mocking & berating the prof- saying all he talks about is rubbish.  

The group go out drinking ‘n’ cursing down the Boulevard that evening. Mason decides they should give the professor a bit of a scare. So, they don brown women's tight masks and head to his large LA home. They climb the houses garden wall- with Mason killing the family's tame dog with a knife, and going inside they all go Manson family-like- clubbing the prof over the head and killing the rest of his family with a fair bit of blood.

The professor survives the attack, but lands up in a coma in hospital. Brought into solve the case is Wexler (J. Arthur Craig) a balding, tubby, and moustached detective- who is probably one of the worst actor in the film- as he stumbles through his lines & voice-over moments.  Fairly soon the Prof is twitching & straining in his bed- as each one of the gang is tracked down, and put to death.

The deaths/ their build-ups are decidedly mixed- moving between plainly silly/ dumb & fairly effective. Going from death by desert plant slashing, to a brutal car bonnet down on a head attack by a ghoulish hand.  The build-ups feature all manner of layered forboding voices, weird camera angles, and mock creepy elements- all soundtracked by a blend of psych-rock/tripped-out sound making.

Meatcleaver Massacre is passable enough for what it is- a highly grindhouse blend of revenge horror, cop investigating mystery, and occult thriller. With a fair bit of blood, nightmarish to creepy hamming it-up vibes, and a few glances of female flesh. But boy is there a lot of padding going here- and that’s aside from the stuck-on pre & post Lee credits. We get overlong shots of the characters wandering through locations, awkward/ re-dubbed cop banter, a few minutes of a random black & white 1940’s film, and a few other things. So to be honest I’d say there’s about an hour-long film here- and really that makes sense, as the whole thing rather plays like an overstretched/padded-out horror anthology tale. 

This new Blu-Ray features a nicely bold & clean print- which looks pretty good throughout. The disc features three filmed interviews, which I’m presuming are all new. The Murder Weapon (19.41) with actor Doug Senior- he played the member of the gang who gets killed by the car bonnet. He talks about how the film had been worked on for two years- with lots of different titles along its length- like Deadly Messiah & Demon Of Death. He talks about how he got the role, and the scenes when they drink alcohol in their apartment it’s real booze. We find out the original director lasted around two days- from then on, all manner of people took on the job.  He says neither he or the other actors got paid, and many of the lines were improvised. Next is Searching For Clues (20.44) which is with actor Paul Kelleher- who played second to the film's lead inspector.  We find out that the day before he did his first day on set, the film producer read his lines over the phone.  And some background on how he got into acting. Lastly, we have The Man. The Myth. The Legend (19.32) which is with the film's first Director / Writer Keith Burns. He talks about how he wrote the original script, and how he got fired for working too slowly. He discusses how much of his original shot footage was too dark, and he never got paid. He talks about lead actor Larry Justin- who he says thought he was the next James Dean and kept saying he wasn’t feeling it. So, a good enough selection of things. 

The finished release comes in a card slip- this feature two limited edition booklets: Axploitation in Blazing Color by Dylan Dean Staley and the original lost script “Professor Cantrell’s Messiah” by Keith Burns.’

So, in conclusion, Meatcleaver Massacre will appeal to either fans of 70’s grindhouse fare, revenge horror/ occult thriller crossbreeds, or Christoper Lee completists. With once again a nice presentation from the folks of 101 Films.